Tardy
by bowtruckle90
Summary: A look into the moments in wartime close to home that make us see what is truly important. Charlie belongs to JKR Bera's mine. One shot, please comment.


He was late. Charlie promised before he left nothing would happen to him, and now everyone had returned except for him. And Alastor.

Bera sighed and looked out the window again arms crossed to keep the chills at bay and leaning against the window frame. She was thinking about all that had happened since they met almost three years before. It was like electricity when they first touched. And the time they had spent together, alone, intimate…it had been so special.

Then the third task of the tournament happened. They clung so close together at first. When everything was all politics and secrets and game playing it was easy to find the love. But then the whole world started to believe. Good times were becoming scarce.

Everything fell apart the winter of the previous year. All the stress of the Rumanian Reserve closing and the Snaefellsnes Reserve, Bera's father's business, had been attacked. It had been too much for either of them. Bera's father had died defending the creatures he loved, and Bera wasn't there to save him because she had wanted to stick with Charlie. Charlie, who was young and virile and perfectly capable of looking after himself, while Falkor was getting on in years.

She had blamed Charlie for it. Charlie told her she should have been blaming herself. Neither of them had meant it, knowing that the occurrence had just been another in a string of violent actions taken against those closest to the people Voldemort wished to see dead, but it made them realize that wartime wasn't the greatest time for relationships to blossom. They started by taking a break. Then after three months they stopped talking so much. Then a month later Charlie took an assignment and they couldn't talk at all even if they wanted to. That was two months ago.

She had arrived at the Burrow a week ago in enough time to see him. For a few days they caught one another's eye across the table as Alastor delegated ideas for a plan to get Harry out of his house in Surry. Then when they had one, Charlie and Bera spent time collecting ready-made polyjuice potions from various allies and sources and assigning roles alongside Alastor. They had barely spoken a few words a day, but the electricity that was there when they first met could still be felt underneath all the pain and fear and remorse that neither one of them opened their lips to vocalize.

Tonight when the group was leaving, someone had to take a thestral so they could oversee the plan and provide aid if direly needed, and Charlie wouldn't let her go. She was trying to get on the thestral when he ripped the reins from her hand as roughly as if she was trying to mount a rogue Hungarian Horntail (which would have been very stupid since Class E dangerous dragons were Bera's specialty, not Charlie's). Bera could still hear the argument in her head, arguing in Bera's native tongue:

"Bera this is dangerous."

"I've been in dangerous situations before. I can handle it."

"No, I want to do this. I have to."

"Why? Why do you have to?"

"Because if I don't you will!"

"So let me!"

"No!...no, I can't do that. I can't lose you."

"Why not, you let me go."

"I know I did. But…I'm doing this, Bera. I won't let you put your life on the line because…because if you didn't come back…"

"What if you don't come back?"

He had cupped her cheek then, reigns from the thestral bridle in his other hand, and kissed her. Then he lifted himself on the creature's back and took off after the rest of them.

And now he was the only one missing.

Bera looked back at everyone, sitting together, holding one another. Molly and Arthur, Bill and Fleur, Hermione was still clinging to Ron the same as she had been since he got back, and Harry kept looking at Ginny in an aching way Bera only knew too well.

Bera looked back at the window. It was raining like hell now. Time passed by so slowly. Eventually after drinking to the memory of Alastor, everyone stumbled upstairs and went to bed or went home to fall into their own sheets, save for two who had left to try and recover the body, and only Bera and Molly were left sitting up.

Molly handed Bera a mug of tea around two o'clock in the morning. Bera took it unconsciously, as Molly placed Bera's hands around the mug for her. She stayed there, looking outside same as Bera was doing, and sighed. "I'm not going to make you move," Molly said quietly. "I've been right where you are, staring into the night and hoping to Merlin they haven't got a hold of him. Nothing will make the worry stop but him coming home."

Molly turned and walked to the staircase. When she was upstairs, well away from Bera, the young dragon keeper set the mug aside as she felt her eyes begin to sting, readying to release all the pain and worry she had been holding in so no one would see. But before more than a single tear could fall, there was a loud crack outside on the lawn.

Bera slammed down her mug on the counter, drew her wand from the holster strapped to her shoulders, and ran to the door. She threw it open and came out stomping toward the newcomer, wand ready, and saw Charlie standing up from where he had apparently crash landed in the mud, an old dish rag sitting less than a yard away. She walked up to him and grabbed a handful of his tee shirt, dragging him to his feet. Noise from behind came to her ears as the others were beginning to thunder down the kitchen stairs back in the house.

"Tell me you love me." Bera commanded.

Charlie looked her in the eye, and answered, "Bera I love you."

"In Icelandic. MY native tongue, not yours, not your second language." Hardly anyone knew he could speak it fluently. Not even his mother and father knew that.

"Bera-"

"Á Íslensku!"

Charlie took a breath. "Ég elska þig."

Bera shoved him backward and dropped her wand, knowing that everyone was watching from the door. Charlie had fallen down again, making a splash in the muck, but stood and came at her, arms open inviting an embrace, but she stepped into him and shoved him again. This time he held stronger and only stumbled back a foot or so. Bera shoved again, and he shoved back this time, making Bera lose her balance a little as she landed on bended knee. She got up and shoved back, and he shoved back and before they knew it they had grabbed onto one another and she had buried her face into his chest, holding on so tight she didn't think she would ever let go.

Charlie folded his arms around her and sank to his knees with Bera still in his arms, ignoring the thick coating of mud clinging to their clothes. Aware of the eyes looking on he said in her ear, "Ég sagði þér að ég myndi koma aftur." I told you I would come back.

"I know," Bera answered in English, sobbing into Charlie's shirt. "You told me with a kiss."


End file.
